The Dream Re-enaction
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: One of the pictures of her and Leonard on Penny's "fridgerator" should not exist in the show's timeline. This is a (somewhat cracky, I suppose?) way that it could. Dedicated to all my fellow Snowflake Snugglers.


**Okay, so for those of you not posting/lurking on Fanforum, the conversation came up between me and Roxanne, first on Twitter, then we brought it to the Leonard/Penny thread, about how one of the pictures on Penny's "fridgerator" is the one of them from season one, dangling in the elevator shaft (smiling for a camera, so clearly a rehearsal pic). That picture would be impossible for Penny to have, since the scene took place in Leonard's dream. So I decided my head canon was that Penny heard about the dream and wanted to re – enact it. So here we go! Takes place between 6.06 and 6.08.**

"You didn't visit me in my lab today," Leonard said.

"If we want to keep it spontaneous, I can't come every day," she said. "Better to keep the quantity down and the quality high, am I right?" she said, lowering her voice for the last three words and raising her eye brows.

"You are right," he agreed, smiling at her. "So what should we do tonight that's spontaneous?"

Penny thought for a moment. "I'm trying to decide if I have too many ideas to name one in specific or if I can't think of anything," she said.

Leonard laughed. "I know," he said. "Why don't we each ask each other a question, the first question that comes to our mind, and then _both_ of us have to answer it."

"Aw, sharing time," she said, grinning. "You go first."

"Um, okay…" Leonard thought a moment. "If you could have something named for you, what would it be?"

"Typical question from a scientist guy," Penny said, smiling. "I'd have to say, maybe a street. Like Penny Avenue. Or Penny Lane. What?" She said, frowning when Leonard smirked. "Oh," she said a moment later, giggling a bit herself. "I see what I did there. Okay, Mister Scientist. Your turn."

"A laboratory," Leonard said. "Or maybe some sort of machine."

"Okay," Penny said, nodding. "My turn for a question?"

"Seems to be," he said.

"I like this game," Penny said. "Okay, so before we were dating, the first time, remember how I went out with Stuart?"

"I may have some recollection of that," Leonard said.

"Okay, well on our second date, we were making out in his car, I was pretty drunk, and I accidentally called him 'Leonard'."

Leonard didn't look as shocked as he could have, but his eyebrows went up. "You thought you were with me?"

"I…" she frowned, thinking. "I don't know if I thought he was you, or if you were just in the back of my mind, or maybe a little bit of both, but…it was really awkward. He asked me why I'd said that, and the only thing I could come up with was 'well, it beats 'you know I'm a dude', right'?"

"I thought he'd come up with that himself," Leonard said under his breath.

"What?"

"What?"

Leonard re-organized his thoughts and spoke again. "So your question is what's the weirdest or most awkward thing that happened related to us before we actually went out?"

"Yes," Penny said. "I'm sure you've got plenty of good ones."

"Let's see…" Leonard said thinking. "I do, by the way," he said in answer to her question. "Okay, here's one. I had a dream when…"

"Is this going to gross me out?" Penny asked.

He looked surprised. "God no. Anyway, remember when we had that time machine?"

"…yes."

"Well I dreamed about the day we were bringing it up the stairs, the day you were late for work? And instead of Sheldon giving you the talk about jumping over to the next building, I…" he looked down, turning slightly red, "I opened the door to the elevator…spun…spun you into my arms, and then held you up while hanging from the cables, you kissed me, and descended down the elevator shaft that way."

Penny was staring at him like he had three heads. "Oh…my…God."

Leonard shifted his weight, looking embarrassed. "That's really stupid, huh?"

"That's really _awesome_," Penny said, getting up and grabbing his hand. "We have to do this!"

"Wait-what?"

"We have to make this happen. I need a picture of this."

Leonard looked confused. "Really?"

"Can you imagine what a fantastic story that'd make?" she said. "We could tell people it really happened!"

"Who are you and what did you do with my girlfriend?"

"What was I wearing when this happened?" She asked.

Leonard told her.

Penny wrinkled her nose. "You dream of me in my Cheesecake Factory uniform? With a _jacket_ over it?"

"I was dreaming about a version of what had already happened," Leonard said. "Not imagining a new scenario."

She rolled her eyes in mock annoyance. "Whatever."

* * *

"Leonard, you seriously dreamed this?" Bernadette asked, looking a bit disturbed as she set her camera up on the tripod.

"Ehh…maybe."

"Okay," Howard said. "The plank is braced between the back of the shaft and the floor, so you'll have something to stand on." He looked his friend up and down. "So you're one of the guy that has delusions about his upper body strength."

"If I had delusions about it," Leonard said, "I wouldn't have asked you to come over and put that plank in place."

"All right, let's go!" Penny said, exiting her apartment. "This what I looked like?" she asked, posing for Leonard.

He smiled. "Pretty much."

"Okay," Bernadette said. "Let's get this show on the road. Howard and I have places to go and people to be shorter than."

"Are you sure this will hold us?" Leonard asked, looking at the plank.

"If not," Howard said, "I'm sure Penny will kiss you on the way down."

Leonard glared at Howard and removed his glasses as Penny came over to him. "What's with the naked face?" she asked him.

"I…I kinda whipped my glasses off in my dream," Leonard admitted.

Penny looked at him for a second. "Oh my God, I…" she trailed off, shaking her head. "That's just so…"

"You can laugh," Leonard said. "You're my girlfriend. _You_ can't," he said, raising an eyebrow at the more vertically challenged couple, who were doing their best to obey.

"Okay," he said, stepping out onto the plank. He looked above and grabbed one of the cables. Penny stepped up to the edge and reached out to encircle his neck with her arms as she swung out to join him, only half of one foot on the plank and the other dangling in mid-air. His free arm came around her back.

"Look at the camera!" Bernadette ordered, and the couple, smiling, turned their heads. The flash went off. "Perfect!" the smaller blonde declared. "I'll send the file to you," she told Penny.

"Thanks. And you…thanks for amusing me," Penny said, kissing Leonard before stepping back out of the elevator shaft.

Leonard joined her. "No problem," he said, curling an arm around her and drawing her close so he could kiss her on the temple.

"Now can you guys do something for us?" Howard asked.

"Sure," Penny said. "What?"

"I want you to photograph Bernie and I re – enacting a dream I had the other night. Actually, would you mind taking a video?"

"Howard!" Bernadette said, slapping him on the chest. "We're not re-enacting that."

"Ew," Penny said, turning away. "You actually tell her about those dreams?"

"No," Howard said.

"Then how did she…" Leonard's jaw dropped just as Penny whirled around, the same realization on her face.

"Okay, it was my dream, get over it!" Bernadette said fiercely, turning and making a show of marching angrily down the stairs

Howard followed her, then stuck his head back in sight a moment later. "We've already re – enacted it."

"Just…" Leonard made a shooing motion with his hand, and Howard disappeared again.

* * *

"I can't believe Bernadette told Howard that she had a dirty dream about them," Leonard said later that night as he sat on the edge of Penny's bed.

Penny came out of the bathroom, letting her hair down. "You wouldn't want to know if I had a dirty dream about us?" she asked.

"Well, I mean…" Leonard shrugged.

"You wouldn't want to know the details?" she asked, walking toward him and lowering her voice again. Upon reaching him, she leaned down so her face was inches from his. "Every last…little…detail?"

Leonard leaned back slightly. "Should I be sensing that you're trying to tell me something?"

Penny smiled, then slid her arms around his neck. "How about I just show you?"


End file.
